


into my lungs

by fugues



Series: bgoauau [2]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 13:15:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fugues/pseuds/fugues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the calm before the storm when every moment is to be savored, they make a moment particularly worth it - because it's theirs, and only theirs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	into my lungs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [belius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/belius/gifts).



> context-wise: this is bgoauau, the same as hika's fic - you don't *have* to have read hers, i think, but it definitely helps. but either way; kairyo was established, they broke up and 'iv crashing at ryoga's place to make him feel better' turned into 'iv living at ryoga's place'. particularly because iv told ryoga to call him thomas and then got mad at chris for being jealous that ryoga was allowed to use it before any of his family were allowed to call him that again.
> 
> aaaaaanyway bgoauau is not a serious au at all for the most part (because what would you expect from an au that is just us playing boardgameonline in character) so this is More Serious than it usually tends to get i think, because it's drawing from the canon points that everything in-game is occurring in time with.
> 
> i think at this point we're probably somewhere around? after? the vkai tagduel, so bear that in mind spoilerwise if you're behind i guess.

Ryoga’s place is… comfortable. There’s a kind of comfort with him that, you know, there  _shouldn’t_  be, because IV set his sister on fire and got him disqualifed and a whole host of other things that mean it shouldn’t be so easy to slip into something comfortable, something almost peaceful.  
  
(there are things beyond this apartment and beyond their games, too, and the empty bedroom  _in_  the apartment to testify to that, and so things should be harder or at least more raw and yet, somehow, they’re not)  
  
So things shouldn’t be this way. But they  _are_ , soft and quiet and, yeah, okay, so Ryoga still has his moments where he’s mad at Kaito, or mad at himself, or just mad at  _feelings_  and IV’s still not talking to Chris properly and there are things they just don’t  _talk_  about, but somehow it still works. Somehow it more than works, because they learn quicker than either of them would have expected how to bring one another up or down; when Ryoga needs to be distracted and when he just needs IV to force him into a hug against his will; when IV needs to have everything delicate moved out of the way so that he can slam about the place and when he needs to cling onto Ryoga like a child and have Ryoga’s voice saying his name,  _Thomas, Thomas_  because that belongs only to Ryoga now.  
  
They touch, a lot, and it’s weird because it  _should_ be weird but it isn’t, and it’s platonic except it isn’t and, most of all, it’s so… normal. Like they fit together, like it was meant to be that way, and that doesn’t make sense because Ryoga’s elbows jab into IV’s sides and IV drools on Ryoga’s shoulders and if they fit together it’s in awkward touches and gangly teenage limbs and stupid bickering, which isn’t really fitting together at all. Except that it is, despite all the odds. They fit together, and they bicker and jostle each other but at the end of it they’ll end up curled into a ridiculous pillow-fort - which is definitely a permanent fixture at this point - and IV will put his head on Ryoga’s shoulder and smirk up at him and Ryoga will roll his eyes and shove at IV’s face and it just… works. It shouldn’t, but it does, and so many things have Not Worked for IV before that to have this, that works and is Right somehow, is more than he’d ever really hoped for even as it is.  
  
They live through the kind of days that feel like weeks. The kind of days that are the calm before the storm, and they both know it, where every moment has to be savored and slow. Where it’s the slow and the almost sleepy moments that seem to come the most often, with the sun slanting through the windows on its way toward the horizon and leaving the room painted in golds and oranges, and they know that they need to turn the lights on soon but that they’ll put it off to the very last moment because neither of them wants to move away from the drowsy warmth of the pillows and each other.  
  
It’s in one of those moments that IV sits up, or at least straightens up from where his head had been laid on Ryoga’s shoulder, and catches Ryoga’s attention with a soft  _oi, Ryoga_ , so that Ryoga will look at his face. And then he sort of stops and only takes in a sharp, almost-winded sort of breath because he doesn’t really-- he’d not had anything planned, really, no real  _reason_ for calling on Ryoga’s attention - only that he’d wanted to look at Ryoga, properly, and in this kind of moment that had seemed, somehow, enough. Except with Ryoga actually looking back at him, brows dipping down into a questioning look and mouth slipping open like he’s about to ask what IV’s doing, it’s  _not_ enough anymore, so IV finds himself moving closer until their foreheads are pressed together. Which doesn’t really help with making Ryoga less confused, fine, and he can feel Ryoga’s frown against his skin, but Ryoga’s right there and he’s warm and everything around them is sleepy, surreal in the dying sunlight, and IV…  
  
IV laughs. It bubbles up out of his chest, something warm and soft and quiet and he doesn’t remember the last time he laughed like this; so freely, so effortlessly, the kind of laugh that’s impossible to hold in because it’s impossible to  _want_ to hold in. IV laughs, and Ryoga’s frown deepens and he mutters out  _Thomas, what--_ but then IV’s lips are on Ryoga’s, and he’s grinning against Ryoga’s mouth and the kiss only lasts for a few moments but it’s IV who pulls back in the end, and that’s something.  
  
He barely dares to open his eyes again - when had they shut, even? - but when he does it’s to Ryoga still frowning at him, brows knitting together. The frown doesn’t last, though, like IV had worried it might, and after a couple of seconds there’s a slow grin spreading across Ryoga’s face, awkward but nonetheless present, to match IV’s own. And then Ryoga’s closing the gap between their lips himself this time, muttering something so low under his breath that IV only catches the  _idiot_ in it.   
  
It’s not some kind of perfect kiss, not by far. Ryoga knocks their noses together on his first attempt to have their lips meet, and their fingers get too tangled in each other’s hair so that they have to stop, now and then, to free themselves, and whenever IV’s tongue brushes against Ryoga’s lips or the inside of his mouth Ryoga squirms in a ticklish kind of way and laughs into IV’s mouth in little fluttering bursts. Which should bother him, IV thinks, that Ryoga is laughing while they’re kissing, but it’s so obvious  _why_ he’s laughing, and such a contented kind of noise that IV can only return the favor with little huffs of his own laughter against Ryoga’s mouth.  
  
It’s not a perfect kiss, no, but somehow it’s only the better for that. Because in the slowly darkening room, with everything painted soft and surreal by the sunset, it’s something  _real_. Something warm and wet and imperfect and  _human_ , and nothing, IV thinks, matters much in the face of that.  
  
(there are things that are important, that Matter, because as human as this is they know that somewhere deep down Ryoga  _isn’t_ , and Rio too, and even outside of them and this room there’s more that matters; Yuuma and Astral and the Numbers and too many things to count, too many things for any of them to bear without breaking, but)  
  
Right now, though, none of it matters at all. Right now, they’re nothing more than what they are in this room, in these kisses; there’s none of Nasch, and none of IV, only Thomas-and-Ryoga who come together like this. Thomas-and-Ryoga who are one, for now, linked with locked lips and hands in hair and the soft sounds and softer laughs that escape from the mouth of one of them only to be caught between the lips of the other.  
  
When they finally come apart, it’s a half-hearted effort - because they can’t, can’t come apart completely and lose this moment when both of them know full well that there will never be another one quite the same - and they stay sitting there, forehead-to-forehead with their fingers coursing through each other’s hair and their breath mingling together between them, and the most they really move is to pull each other down into the pillows so that they can lie there together.   
  
There’s a silence between them then; except not silent, really, only wordless, because their breath comes soft between them accompanied by quiet little noises as though each of them wants to keep checking that the other is still there, never mind that they could already confirm it with every other sense. And besides that they talk with touch - fingertips sent coursing over each other’s faces and hands stroking down each other’s arms and sometimes the hands meet, sometimes their fingers slide against one another and they hold their hands intertwined in the rapidly-darkening room - and say more with that than either of them could ever begin to manage with words alone.   
  
In the end, it’s only when the room has gotten too dark for them to properly see each other’s faces that they finally break the quiet with actual words. It’s IV who speaks first, a quiet,  _hey, Ryoga, I_ … before he trails off and only brushes the pad of his thumb over Ryoga’s bottom lip instead, eyes sliding shut as he finally pulls his head away from Ryoga’s to rest it against Ryoga’s shoulder instead. And he doesn’t say any more, but he doesn’t have to; not when he feels Ryoga shift against him until his chin is resting against the top of IV’s head and then feels the movement caused by Ryoga’s soft, quiet sigh and his breathed,  _yeah, I know_ into IV’s hair.  
  
(even knowing all the things they’re going to have to deal with, all the things that are bound to dig in like claws and strip them away to nothing, there in the dark he lies with Ryoga and Thomas can’t really do anything but smile)


End file.
